14. STICK SEASON
14
STICK SEASON
NOAH KAHAN
DINAH
“Never in a million years did I think I’d see you up at seven a.m. on a Saturday for sports.” Emory scooches closer to me on the bleachers, grasping her coffee cup between her hands. Decked out in a baseball hat, loose tee, and high waisted jeans, she totally looks the part of a Peewee Baseball mom.
“You literally told me I had to be here,” I grumble.
“You’re right,” she cackles and sips her coffee like a cartoon villain. She knows I had to be up at four a.m. to ensure everything at Knotty & Nice was prepped for the day and ready for the two teens I hired to work on Saturdays and a couple afternoons a week—both of whom seem to have massive crushes on Jack’s delivery kid, Greg. It’s probably a disaster waiting to happen but having a free Saturday morning to spend with Emory and Molly feels like a huge win.
Molly rushes to me with a hug just as I take a sip of coffee. “And I’m not here for sports. I’m here for this little lady. How are you, Molly Dolly?”
“Aunt Dinah Belle! You came!” She wraps her perfect little arms around my neck and squeals in my ear far too loudly for the hour, jumping right into a list of questions. “Are you gonna stay the whole time? Did you see Theo yet? I’m wearin’ my American flag panties today, how ‘bout you?”
I giggle into Molly’s neck. This is why I came to Honey Hill. Not for a confusing romance with a complex man or pretzel baking but for moments and mornings like this, spent with my favorite people. “Saturday, for me.”
She pulls back, a question in her brow. “Saturday panties?!” she essentially yells— and does this child have no other volume? “What does that mean?”
I shrug. “Helps me keep my days of the week straight. And how about we don’t announce our underwear to the rest of the general population.” I look around at the various parents and kids assembling by the field within earshot. “If it’s a secret club, we can’t let everyone in on it.”
“Until you get the t-shirts made, though, right?” Emory perks up, and I just know she’s a second away from saying, “I told you so.”
“Right,” I agree. “Obviously. When we have the Patterned Panty Party shirts printed, then everyone will know.”
Molly nods her head seriously and zips her lips before jumping off the bleachers suddenly and running full speed at Theo and his parents across the field.
“Let’s hope she’s a bit more coy about her undergarments with that kid than she is with me.”
“Hey!” Emory elbows me in the side. “I blame this budding romance on you!”
We watch as Theo wraps Molly in the most innocent bear hug imaginable, tags her, then runs away, starting a game of tag that the other kids around them join into quickly. It’s so simple and sweet, I can’t look away.
“Look at how happy she is, though. A little romance is good for everyone.”
Emory harrumphs at my side and snorts into her coffee sardonically. “Right. Because romance has been so kind to you lately.”
She eyes my classic, black Converse and arches her eyebrow.
“It means nothing.” I narrow my own eyes at her.
“Black when you’re feelin’ down. Your shoes tell the story, sis. And you’re sad.” She looks at me over her sunglasses and tilts her lips. “Tell me how almost kissin’ Jack Jones and diving headfirst into that soap opera romance has been treatin’ ya? Seen any kittens lately?”
“I don’t wanna give up on him, Em,” I admit quietly, aware of the growing number of local listening ears around us.
“Right. He called you Dinah Belle. So everything will magically get better from here.”
“Good gracious, you sound so cynical, Emory.” I point at Molly, laughing into the open air with an adorable little boy gazing at her like she’s sunshine incarnate. “Look at her. What could be bad about that? I just want some of that happiness for myself. I want it for you and Molly, too.”
“You shouldn’t be romanticizing the situation. I told you to be careful.” She lowers her voice and waves at Caroline Lovett meandering towards us through the grass with another woman at her side. “I’m worried about you, Dinah Belle. This isn’t one of your romance novels. The guy has a split personality, memory loss, and it sounds like, a whole lotta baggage. This doesn’t have HEA written all over it, ya know? Despite what color shoes you decide to wear around. It’s real life.”
“I know it’s real life, Em,” I hiss, but soften as her eyes grow teary. “I know all too well about the baggage we all carry. Especially you and me. And, yes, Jack is complicated, but I like him. I like him so much.”
“I’m worried you aren’t being realistic, Dinah.” Emory’s voice mellows with quiet emotion. She stares off at the field where her daughter runs carefree from base to base. “Sometimes life doesn’t end with everything wrapped in a pretty, pink ribbon. It isn’t always love at first sight. Roses and wild flower deliveries and baking pretzels in a daze of attraction are not the norm. Sometimes it’s ugly.” Her lower lip shakes and she bites down, passing it back and forth between her teeth.
“I know, Em.”
“You see everything through rose-colored glasses. I tried to hold those up for you when mom and dad died, but I thought after James, you’d see that…”
For a moment I feel guilty about hiding my own grief from Emory, and my conversation with Jackson the other day comes to mind. I never wanted her to feel like she had to carry the weight of my loss and the weight of her own. Especially after she lost her future with James and needed to focus on Molly. But maybe it was wrong. Maybe I should have been more honest about the hard days—the down days . When, though I loved talking to my sister, I mourned asking our mom for advice rather than Emory. Or when I wished I could call my dad or James and ask for help with the remodel of the shop, or taxes, or questions about men I feel like only they would be able to answer.
Emory, Molly, and I have operated as a team of three for so long, with Emory at the helm, I think I may have sacrificed honesty for the sake of her peace.
“I’m sorry, Emory.” She lightens as I put my arm around her shoulder, pulling her closer. “I know a happy ending isn’t guaranteed.” She tries to pull away, and I let her, but link my arm with hers. We’re sitting shoulder to shoulder, and to anyone on the outside of our bubble, it looks like we’re happy as can be. But behind our oversized sunglasses, we’re both weepy messes. “Not fighting for the future… for the outcome I’m praying for… that’s not me. That feels too much like giving up. And if I do that, I’m guaranteed not to have a chance at that HEA. Whatever it looks like and whoever it may be with.”
“I don’t want you to get hurt.” She sniffles.
“And I don’t want you to give up.”
A throat clears and we both turn our faces, remembering that we’re sitting in the middle of the metal bleachers where other spectators have begun to cluster around us. Caroline Lovett bites down on her sweet smile, little Ollie pressed to her chest. The woman at her side must be one of the sisters she mentioned, though her hair is bouncing in blonde curls compared to Caroline’s wavey, honey color. They’re biting their lips in an identical fashion, and she also has a baby strapped to her chest. It’s like they’re in some sort of beautiful babywearing club.
“I’m real sorry to interrupt,” Caroline says. “Should we pretend like we didn’t hear everything y’all just had a breakthrough over?”
Emory and I pause, realizing our blunder simultaneously, and erupt with nervous laughter. Emory clears her throat, and I see the moment she realizes she wasn’t entirely in control for once. She fixes her barely-out-of-place hair, adjusts her posture, and shakes her head. “Nah. She almost kissed Jack Jones,” my sister blurts out like she’s giving a weather report. “But she hasn’t even talked to him since.”
It was a sunny Monday morning with a side of almost make out, then a shocking drought swept over the remainder of the week.
I growl and steal the coffee from her hands. “Seriously, Em! I bought you coffee!”
She shrugs as if she couldn’t care less, and I can’t hold back the growl. The blonde beside Caroline laughs. “So, you’re definitely sisters.” She holds out her hand to shake with both of us. “I’m Georgia Lovett. Caroline’s sister.”
“Lovett?” I question.
“Yup. Caroline and I married brothers. My husband’s right there.” Georgia points out a man holding a little girl in his arms outside one of the dugouts. “Lake. And that’s our daughter, Davey. And this is Harper.” She rubs her hand along the back of the baby in her arms.
“Georgie’s in charge of the marketing for the Badger Bites Competition,” Caroline explains. “Chloe mentioned you registered for it, right?”
“Yeah, I did. I’ve been working on some new recipes.” I smile at Georgia. “Hopefully we’ll get to work together soon.”
“Definitely! I’m lookin’ forward to it.” She’s so naturally poised while also inviting. Both sisters are. I feel like we could be friends. “So, Jackson, huh? That must be fun.”
“Oh, it’s something, for sure.”
“He was just tellin’ Davey this mornin’ all about the kitten he got.”
I want to hop out of my seat. “He kept him?”
Caroline exchanges a glance with my sister, and Emory explains, “The cat’s a whole thing. Dinah hasn’t spoken to the guy in a week, after they baked sexy pretzels together and almost kissed, but then he had some sort of tantrum and hasn’t reached out since.”
“Wow.” Georgia looks positively delighted at all the juicy details Emory’s intent on dropping. Like she’s one second away from squealing, “ Girl Talk!” and insisting we change into jammies. “Well, maybe you’ll get your chance… for both.”
All our eyes follow Georgia’s line of sight where J. Jones walks onto the baseball field like some sort of athletic supermodel and quietly calls the kids to the mound.
I grip the coffee in my hands to keep myself from fanning my face and study the man kneeling at eye level with the gaggle of kids surrounding him excitedly.
He’s smiling gently but seems stiff. Maybe a little uncomfortable. One of the Lovett guys says something, and the rest of the men, Owen included, chuckle around the mound. For the life of me, I cannot figure out whether I’m obsessively peeping on Jackson or Jack. He throws his hand into the center of the circle, encouraging the kids to stack theirs on top, and winces slightly when they chant.
I think it’s Jack.
He tips his hat forward over his brow, ready to pitch to Owen who’s playing catcher. In all those romances I read, a backwards hat is the way to go, but I’m here to testify that a front-facing baseball cap casting a mysterious shadow over the eyes is nothing to scoff at. In fact, when the kids line up at the edges of the field and cheer for every ball that makes it into Owen’s glove, I want to be down there, too, just to get a better look at what’s happening beneath the rim of that old Badger’s cap.
Jack’s movements are so smooth and natural, I think maybe I’m mistaken. I’ve seen that same body swing a bat before like it was an extra limb as Jackson, but Jack has never mentioned baseball. It seems totally out of character that he’d be here today playing with children and shaking his head between pitches as Maloy, Nate, and Owen rag him from the sidelines.
Maloy says something I can’t hear clearly, and J. Jones turns his attention to me. Our eyes meet for a breath before Jack—because that intense stare can only be his—throws out another pitch.
“Um, whoa.” Caroline fans her face. “That is…”
“Mega-tension,” Georgia finishes for her and fans her face.
I know I’m drooling here, but I can’t seem to be bothered to care. Especially not when between pitches, Jack adjusts his hat, his shirt, or takes a deep breath and then always finds my eyes before throwing another. It’s that same magnetic force that pulled me towards him the first night I saw him, but it’s Jack.
Just Jack.
He calls Theo out onto the field, earning the wild cheers of Caroline and Georgia, and kneels down to talk to him on the mound. Jack demonstrates exactly how to throw the ball, walking Theo through the basics of his arm movements, and then finally steps back to watch the little boy give it a shot. When the ball meets Owen’s glove the whole crowd cheers, but I only have eyes for Jack.
He gives Theo a high five, and holy cannoli, Coach Ken is something special.
For the following one hundred and twenty minutes, I’m forced to watch Jack as he gracefully, and absolutely flawlessly, fills the role of Little League coach to twenty-five youngsters. Running bases, batting, pitching, catching what they call pop flys deep in the outfield, and then grounders in the dirt. He moves across the field like he was born to do so and lavishes each kid with praise and individual attention.
The extent of my baseball knowledge can be narrowed down to the two and half minute clip of supermodel vampires playing in an undersaturated thunderstorm with “Supermassive Black Hole ” playing in the background and my first date with Jackson at the batting cages. I know absolutely zero, but I also know, without a doubt, Jack is a natural.
And let me tell you, he is a sight to behold. One I can’t tear my eyes away from. I don’t even care that my sister has rolled her eyes at me the entire morning. Or that Caroline and her sister have quietly planned our wedding and the names of our future children—the four I'll apparently be birthing naturally in some sort of tub—by the time we reach the midway mark.
It’s lunchtime when I notice that Jack’s starting to slow down, growing quieter and more terse, and I know something isn’t quite right. He’s wearing sunglasses and his hat’s pulled low over his eyes as he sips a bottle of water.
“Hello, Just Jack. ” I put my fingers through the chain link fence he’s leaning against on the other side. I feel unsure of myself, in a new way, after our talk on the street earlier in the week. I haven’t seen him since Monday, but I also haven’t sought him out. I want to give him time to figure everything out for himself, but I also want to climb over this fence and kiss his stupid, beautiful face, so my self-control may not last much longer.
“Hi, Polly Pocket.” He sips again, and though I can’t see his eyes through the shades covering them, I know he’s studying my face. “I’m sor—”
“You look good out there.” I blurt out the understatement of the century, interrupting his apology. He looks like a dang supermodel is what I don’t say. “Really good.”
Whoa, Bessy. Calm down.
He smirks, and I see a flicker of Jackson in the way he shifts from uncertainty to cool confidence. “Oh, yeah? Really good. I don’t hate that.”
I roll my eyes but feel his gaze and don’t miss the way he shifts the weight of his feet back and forth, letting himself lean closer to where I’m standing. “I’m sorry about the other day. The way I—”
“No, Jack. I pushed too hard. With Chipper and your family. You don’t owe me anything. We aren’t… I dunno… It’s not like we’re…”
He puts his hand on mine, interlinking them on the fence. “We are, Dinah. Or I want us to be… something. If you do. I just need you to be patient with me, okay? This isn’t easy for me.”
I nod. “I can do that. Yes.”
He gives my fingers a light squeeze. “I think Cat has missed you the past few days.”
I arch an eyebrow. “ Cat ?”
“Yeah. He seems… really grumpy without you around.” He pauses, taking a deep, exaggerated breath. “Clawed up his castle and has just been hissing… and growling at everyone.”
He’s keeping the cat. He didn’t return him to the shelter. For some reason, his confirmation has my inner cheerleader doing backflips even more than the feel of his finger taking gentle sweeps over mine.
“Chipper growls?”
“No. Not Chip…” His fingers loosen on mine and his mouth slackens. “ Ca… ca… cat,” he stutters and shakes his head. “ Cat thinks yashhhho…”
Jack presses his face against the fence, and I know something’s not right.
“Owen!” I shout, and Jack blanches, bending over to put his hands on his knees and throwing up on the ground at his feet. “Owen, help!”
I rush around the dugout to make it to Jack, but Owen, who was already on the field, beats me there. “Hey, bro. Let’s just get you down to the ground, okay? That’s it, Jack. Sit down.” He helps him to the grass where Jack leans his back to the fence but keeps his face between his knees.
“I don’t know what happened,” I explain and try to ignore the crowd watching him now. Worried kids have circled us as the Banner and Lovett brothers attempt to divert their attention back to the field. “We were talking, and then he just started slurring his words and stuttering.”
I kneel down and press my hands to Jack’s cheeks. Though he doesn’t look up, he holds my wrist in his hand.
“He’ll be okay,” Owen says quietly, kneeling down to his haunches and putting his hand on Jack’s shoulder. “I just need to get him home.”
I nod and step back.
“Think I can get you up, bro?”
Jack slowly nods and releases my wrist to put pressure against his forehead. “Nate,” he says, voice scratchy.
“Yeah, I’ll get Nate to help.” Owen pats his shoulder and stands, giving me a sympathetic smile. “He just pushed too hard today, that’s all,” Owen whispers. “He needs rest and quiet, but he’ll be out for a few days.”
He waves for Nate and blows out a tired breath. “I hope you’ll stick around, Dinah. He, um… he volunteered to do this, and that isn’t a small thing, ya know? Don’t give up on him.”
I hear what he isn’t saying. That being a part of this camp is a big deal for Jack. That something is changing. I know this moment is significant.
I’m scared for him as I watch Nate and Owen all but carry him off the field and into Owen’s truck, pulled right up to the fence. The look on Emory’s worried face in the crowd and the reminder of our earlier conversation plays through my head. Those rose-colored glasses officially fall from my eyes. I look between her and the truck driving away, and I see the moment Emory realizes I’ve made my choice.
She mouths “go” from the bleachers, and I chase after my HEA.